This must have been one of the first franchises in the county to get refurbished. All the clunky, hard-plastic booths lacquered with that ’90s paper cup color scheme of teal and purple have been ripped out, thrown out, and replaced with a stripped-down, pseudo-urban minimalism. Angular tables and chairs, booths arranged asymmetrically, all of it coated in a subdued palette of matte burgundies and Atlantic blues, despite the vast stretches separating them from both the eastern and western coasts.

The PlayPlace has been spared the facelift. Apparently interior decor trends have zero sway on the timeless functionality of tube slides and ball pits. In the glass cube extension housing the PlayPlace, only the furniture has been updated, looking like it’d been drawn up by some brooding Swede determined to undermine the wholesome American notion of warmth and plenty that those yellow arches outside not only embody but promise.

Instantly Henry realizes his mistake. Never should have tucked himself in the corner table next to the trash. From here he can see too much. A woman throws away a quantity of uneaten fries, burger bun ridges, and chicken nugget nubs that shapes his mouth into an appalled oval like the hole of the trash bin.

Once she exits the cube with her flock of kids, it’s only Henry and a table occupied by two mothers, their daughters scuttling through the plastic bridges above. These mothers have got at least a decade on him, but they radiate health and comfort, arms muscled and lean from mornings at the gym, skin somehow sun-crisped yet silky at the same time. The prettier of the two—shrink-wrapped in athletic wear, her hair an asphalt-black wasp hive—catches him staring. His sights snap to Junior, before he can confirm whether the kink of her lips had been a sneer or a grin. He’d secretly disagreed with Michelle. Still thinks he looks sort of handsome with his hair slicked back like this. It feels good, if only for a second, to let himself believe this pretty mother might think so, too.

Patience. Too busy pacing himself, taking careful bunny nibbles of his McChicken, to monitor Junior. The boy now eyes his first bite into the Big Mac like a mistake. Henry dabs a fallen glob of mayonnaise off the wrapper, runs the flavored pad of his finger over his teeth. With his tongue, he presses the salt and serum into the membrane of his gums. No matter how slowly he eats, each swallow lands in his stomach with a distant thud, like a handball meeting the bottom of a dried-up well.

Junior sniffles. Puts the Big Mac down to smear at his nose. “Can I go play?”